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Meyer: US nordic combined could use your help to fund development

Todd Lodwick of Steamboat Springs has been the face of United States nordic combined competition for a long time, but he is 35, and the next generation must soon try to fill his large ski boots. (Christof Koepsel, Getty Images)

One of the most enjoyable and heartwarming stories I've chronicled across my years as a ski writer — now entering my 25th season — has been the evolution of the U.S. nordic combined team.

Hold on, stay with me, please. Yes, it's an obscure and old-school sport, but those are just two of the qualities that make it so endearing. That it combines the majesty of ski jumping with the lung-burning intensity of cross country skiing makes it fascinating.

In the 1990s I had the pleasure of watching the U.S. program progress from one of the worst in the sport to one of the best. And in 2010 I got to see the U.S. team reach the pinnacle at the Vancouver Olympics, winning a gold medal and three silver medals. That was a year after it won three gold and a bronze at the world championships.

It was a worst-to-first story, much of it unfolding in Steamboat Springs, with Steamboat natives playing starring roles.

But now the U.S. nordic combined team needs help. The mainstays of the program — Todd Lodwick and Johnny Spillane of Steamboat, and Bill Demong of Vermontville, N.Y., who might as well call Steamboat his second home — are in their 30s. Lodwick, a double gold medalist at the 2009 world championships, turns 36 this month.

Somebody has to replace those guys when they retire. And the U.S. Ski Team isn't in a position to fund developmental nordic athletes the way it did in the past, largely because it has to fund all the new-school sports the FIS keeps adding.

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So on Nov. 15, the National Nordic Foundation is conducting a drive for $25 donations called "Drive for 25" to help fund development athletes.

"Each athlete can cost $40,000 to fully fund," said former U.S. nordic combined standout Kerry Lynch, "so we're doing the best we can to subsidize their funding and ease the pressure on the families."

It costs that much because those kids need to be competing on the World Cup "B" circuit in Europe, but the U.S. Ski Team doesn't have the resources to send them there.

"The team says 'We have to make hard choices,' and, 'We can do a lot of in-kind support,' but giving jackets and stuff doesn't really pay for plane tickets," Lynch said.

Lynch, who grew up in Grand Lake, won two World Cup events in 1983. Now he lives in Steamboat, and his son Erik is one of three Steamboat skiers on the six-man U.S. B team.

The A team is made up of Lodwick, Spillane, Demong and Bryan Fletcher, another Steamboat skier. Fletcher, 26, won last season at the Holmenkollen in Norway, the most prestigious venue in the sport.

"Todd, Billy and Johnny stayed on to help the next generation," Lynch said. "That was a huge motivation for them. They didn't have to do that. They know what it takes, and they've been helping the next generation more than anybody else, especially Bill Demong. He's really been the guy who has stood out there and been the player-coach, a real leader to the next generation. Without him, I don't think we would have seen Bryan Fletcher's win in Oslo (Holmenkollen) last year."

In another fundraising effort, the NNF is promoting junkets to watch the team compete at Holmenkollen this season (March 11-18). It's pricey — $12,000 per person, or $15,000 per couple — but it includes lodging, event tickets and behind-the-scenes access to the U.S. athletes at the event often called the Super Bowl of nordic sports.

Holmenkollen, where crowds routinely exceed 100,000, is located just outside of Oslo, the capital of Norway.

"We're always going up against the challenge that there are no nordic facilities near major metropolitan areas," Lynch said. "It works in Europe, where you've got lots of facilities around large population bases. When they have a World Cup on the weekend, it's like our NFL football games — 80,000 people show up, they pay to get in and the sport is self-sustaining. Trying to keep it in the spotlight when there are so many other choices (in the U.S.) has been a real challenge for us."

Here's hoping the program can get the support it needs to develop the next generation. It's truly a beautiful sport, and one worth preserving in this country.